After reading everyone else's comments, I wanted to clarify my position on eating animals in general.

I believe that if we are going to eat meat, the animals we eat (like any living creatures) should be treated with respect.

If we are going to pen animals up for our convenience, then we should make their world
as close as possible to the world they'd live in if they were free.

And if we're slaughtering them or hunting them for food,
then their deaths should be quick and painless (as is humanly possible).

The pig farms and chicken farms and cattle ranches in America are obscene.
What's also obscene is that the mistreatment of these animals is condoned by so many.
It should be criminalized to torture any living creature.
I think that the owners and employees of these places are immoral, and that they should be in imprisoned for their actions.

I am an omnivore. It's the way I was built. I am a human being, after all.
I think killing vegetables for food is no different than killing an elk for food.
(Just because we can't hear screaming, doesn't mean
they don't freak out while we're mowing them down, or pulling them up by their roots.)

But killing to eat is necessary. We must survive, right? So we do like every other thing on this earth;
we consume and we reproduce - hopefully before something else consumes us. (We are all food to something.)

I've made pets of geese, ducks, lambs, and pigs. And if I was hungry, it's possible that I'd let myself
starve before I ate one of them. I don't know; I've never been in that situation.

I know one thing, if I'd ever had to kill one of them, I'd have done the deed swiftly, painlessly, and with respect.
But then, pet or not, any death brought to something that's alive should be swift, painless, and done so with respect. Yes?

I think killing vegetables for food is no different than killing an elk for food.
(Just because we can't hear screaming, doesn't mean
they don't freak out while we're mowing them down, or pulling them up by their roots.)

The thing is, plants don't have a central nervous system, which means they don't have nociceptors, therefor they can't sense pain where as animals can and do. So it is different.

We can't be certain that they don't have something analogous to our nociceptors.
And quite frankly, we'd be arrogant to assume that they don't feel something.
Even if it were to turn out that they don't feel "pain" as we define it, that doesn't make it any less agonizing or frightening for them.

And certainly, they DO perceive danger. It's been shown time and again that plants perceive threats to their safety, and react to those threats by secreting and excreting chemicals.

We can't be certain that they don't have something analogous to our nociceptors.
And quite frankly, we'd be arrogant to assume that they don't feel something.
Even if it were to turn out that they don't feel "pain" as we define it, that doesn't make it any less agonizing or frightening for them.

And certainly, they DO perceive danger. It's been shown time and again that plants perceive threats to their safety, and react to those threats by secreting and excreting chemicals.

I agree. The fact that scientists didnt yet found out doesnt mean that plants dont feel anything.
I had a mimosa plant at home and she would hide her leafs when touched. So the plants definitely do react to what is hapenning around them.

Me too. I'm not going to let myself starve. I continue to eat meat, too.
I do try to only eat meat from local people, people whom I trust to treat animals kindly.
And when it gets down to it, most of my meat is trout, elk, deer, buffalo, and local chickens.

When I've harvest plants, I've offered tobacco with a prayer of thanks.
I don't know that it makes the plants feel any better, but it stills my grief some.
And I do believe that we are all interconnected. So, just because I cannot
speak whatever language the plant's spirit might, I'm hoping that they
understand that the tobacco has meaning.

I think you're missing the point. YOU. DON'T. KNOW.you. don't. know.
You are speaking as someone socialized into believing that only humans' experiences are valid.
(And then maybe some mammals, if you deem them intelligent enough?)

You cannot know. You are arrogant to assume that you know anything about what plants feel or don't feel.
It's best for you to acknowledge that, and work from that point. You'll learn so much more as you grow up and grow old. (i.e. I always assume I do not know something for certain, so I try to shape my actions accordingly [to take in the possibility that they might harm something/someone].)

I think you're missing the point. YOU. DON'T. KNOW.
You are speaking as someone socialized into believing that only humans' experiences are valid.
(And then maybe some mammals, if you deem them intelligent enough?)

You cannot know. You are arrogant to assume that you know anything about what plants feel or don't feel.

Let me ask you this: Are you a plant? No? Then you yourself don't know either and are making assumptions that plants do sense pain. So don't call me arrogant, when you yourself are acting as such.

Edit: If you want to continue conversing this, PM me. This thread has been derailed too much already.

Let me ask you this: Are you a plant? No? Then you yourself don't know either and are making assumptions that plants do sense pain. So don't call me arrogant, when you yourself are acting as such.

That is not true HarVee Tsyo is just saying that assuming that they dont feel pain is arrogant. She doesnt say they do feel pain. She just said that it is not impossible and we should keep that in mind.
(well that is how I understood it)

We can't be certain that they don't have something analogous to our nociceptors.
And quite frankly, we'd be arrogant to assume that they don't feel something.
Even if it were to turn out that they don't feel "pain" as we define it,
that doesn't make it any less agonizing or frightening for them.

And certainly, they DO perceive danger. It's been shown time and again
that plants perceive threats to their safety, and react to those threats by secreting and excreting chemicals.

Edited to Add: I think it's kinda cute how two people have disagreed with this post. So...I guess they're saying I didn't write this earlier?

I don't know that there isn't an invisible, intangible, inaudible dragon in my house. Is it arrogant to assume that there isn't one?

It is very easy to make anything sound absurd... Doesnt it make you sad when someone doesnt treat you the way you deserve to be treated? I think that treating others with respect is something we should learn. And it doesnt matter if the others are people, animals or plants.

Personally, I doubt that there's a dragon, but who can say with certainty that there isn't? I know I can't.

Our eyes and our ears perceive wavelengths in only a limited range.
And even our brightest only use a small portion of their brains.
But just because we can't hear or see something (or wrap our brains around it) doesn't mean it isn't happening.

For example:
Mice communicate in frequencies too high for us to perceive.
Elephants and giraffes do the same in frequencies too low.
Birds and insects can see UV rays reflected off of flowers. Some birds can see magnetic fields.

There is so much around us that we do not perceive.

I appreciate the point you're trying to make. But remember: it wasn't that long ago
that scientists were arrogant enough to think that only humans were self-aware,
or that humans were the only sentient things on this planet.

First, that small portion thing is stupid. Yes, humans only use 10% of their brain. At a time. We use the whole freaking thing, but only 5-10% is utilized at any given moment and I hate that myth because it's used to excuse the stupidest things and nobody can do ten seconds of research to find out that it's not true.

Also, we can detect all sorts of wavelengths. We have the whole thing mapped out. We can even pick up "auras", or the electrical emissions of the human body, and use that to make determinations about the person's mind. If I bring in one of those and still find no dragon, is it still "arrogant"? Or are you going to make another excuse about not knowing things? Because I think there's a point where that argument becomes silly, and it's where you can't determine the criteria for proving that it doesn't exist.

And where is the point where we can declare that plants don't feel pain? If I analyze every part of a plant's body and find no possible means of pain, human or otherwise, would you still make excuses? If I could wire a plant up to a human's nervous system and they still can't feel pain, would you still say we can't know for sure?

1. I am not assuming that a plant feels pain (as we define pain). But I am not so arrogant as to dismiss it. I've already explained that to your friend, HarVee.

2. In a few hundred years, people will look back and smirk at the assumptions and arrogance of the people from this century. Just as we do when we read the ridiculous racist, sexist, species-centric, etc, etc, etc, crap believed by so-called scientists of the last century.

3. Just because other beings don't function EXACTLY the same way humans do, doesn't mean they don't have experiences analogous to ours.

Why is that so difficult for some people to grasp? It is not anthropomorphic to consider that other beings might have experiences that cause them stress or fear. It is arrogant to assume one needs a CNS to feel or experience something. It is arrogant to assume we must be able to measure something in order for it to be there.

Our instruments are limited by our technology. And our technology is limited by our lack of imagination.

You mentioned all the racist, sexist crap of the past. What about the people who got it right? They were working from equally limited knowledge, so was it arrogant of them to make their assumptions about what we now know to be true? Or how about the guy who discovered continental shift? He thought that it was because of the earth's rotation, not the plates under the surface. Was he arrogant for making an assumption about the continental shift when he couldn't possibly perceive the mechanics?

I'm not saying that keeping an open mind is a bad thing. I'm saying that dismissing all evidence on the basis of "oh, but DO WE REALLY KNOW?!" is stupid. We have evidence that plants do not feel pain, and none saying that they do. And no, reacting to danger is not evidence of pain - pain is not the only possible response to danger, and given that plants are defenseless, get eaten a lot, and cannot learn responses to danger (since they're "born" with their defenses, if they have any), then having a pain system would not help them survive. It would just make them suffer, which is counterintuitive to survival.
Sure, keep an open mind, but don't insult people for following the evidence.

I kid, I kid. It's interesting reading everyone's point of views. I don't deem myself mature enough to hold a proper view on this subject, but this is one of the strangest threads I've seen in the debate room for a while.

Humans are predators. Dogs and cats are predators. In nature, It's not normal for predators to eat other predators if it's not a cannibalistic species. Even there it's not normal, more accidental or nescessary for survival. Of course it does happen. If you're starving, you (and other species) eat what you can find. Do I think it's morally wrong? No more than eating any other animal. But I don't believe it to be auto-natural, just because they're not human (because as we all know, humans aren't a part of nature like everyone else, and are above any and all instincts and nature laws. Slight sarcasm may occur).

I personally wouldn't, but I don't have anything wrong with eating dog or cat meat, it's really no morally different from eating beef etc. That is, I think it's wrong to eat pet dogs or cats, but where dogs/cats are bred specifically to be eaten then it's fine, which is usually how it's done in the countries that eat cat/dog anyway.